Los Altos city officials plan to implement a new striping plan this fall that could improve traffic safety for cyclists and pedestrians traveling along West Edith Avenue at the downtown’s edge. But some residents think much more must be done.
As part of this year’s annual street resurfacing project, plans include lots of green striping for bikes and refreshed white paint for intersections at First through Fourth streets, Los Altos Avenue and Foothill Expressway.
The latter intersection drew recent attention on Nextdoor, the social networking app, when Los Altos Hills resident Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe fame posted that her son was nearly hit by a passing vehicle turning right from Edith onto Foothill.
“Does anyone else absolutely hate that pedestrian intersection?” she wrote July 22. “Can we rally the town and the community to do something about it? There are so many feasible options. There’s no reason why we should continue to live with an outdated, unsafe intersection where so many kids are crossing.”
Wojcicki, who was with her son at the Edith-Foothill pedestrian island, was convinced he would have been hit had she not screamed.
“I’ve always recognized that the Foothill crossing is really challenging,” she later told the Town Crier. “Even around the time I was pregnant with my first son, 13 years ago now, we thought about, like, how could you improve that crossing? And we’ve spent time (coming up with ideas). Could there be a bridge over Foothill, could there be a bridge over San Antonio? It’s just an awful, awful crossing. … I bike to work every day, so every single day when I go from Fremont to San Antonio, it’s perilous – people zip down the road.”
Wojcicki cited less-expensive options as well – eliminating the free right-hand turns onto Foothill, for instance, and requiring full stops; or installing traffic signals that turn green for bikes to go right while motorists are on red, and vice versa.
Concerns shared
Others share Wojcicki’s concerns about the Edith-Foothill intersection, as well as cycling along Edith between San Antonio Road and Foothill.
Jean Struthers, a 60-year resident of Los Altos who served on the city’s bicycle committee in the 1970s, noted that her husband, Dave, a cyclist, “kept saying the free running right turns are the worst problem for bikes and pedestrians. If they had to stop before turning and look, the kids would be safer.”
Struthers chimed in on Wojcicki’s post, citing the need for full stops at the intersection.
Los Altos resident Anne Paulson, who also participated in the post, articulated the safety drawbacks at Edith-Foothill.
“It’s designed so that drivers on Edith can speedily turn onto Foothill,” she said. “The driver doesn’t have to stop; in fact, if the driver turns while the Foothill drivers have a green light, the driver will be accelerating to fit in a gap. A driver in that situation is naturally going to be looking left, to find a gap in traffic, not right, where there’s a pedestrian they’re about to mow down. The turn is radiused for car speed.”
Paulson proposed a solution: “The way to fix this is to block the right turn on red and square off the corner so that drivers don’t turn right on red anyway. Make the drivers come to a full stop.”
The issue over which jurisdiction is responsible to make fixes adds to residents’ frustration. While Edith is the city’s responsibility, Foothill is not – the expressway is under Santa Clara County’s jurisdiction. For the latest restriping project, the city had to get a sign-off from the county’s Roads and Airports Department for the Edith-Foothill intersection.
The Town Crier reached out to county officials for comment but did not hear back before Monday’s print deadline.
“Free right turns are not ideal for vehicle speeds and bike/ped safety,” said Marisa Lee, Los Altos’ transportation services manager. “Since this intersection is county right-of-way, the county might be able to speak to any planned improvements to this effect. They removed the slip lanes at (the) Foothill and El Monte (Avenue intersection), so it sounds like the concept agrees with their ideology. It’s just a matter of timing, funding and prioritization, I would imagine.”
In areas where the city has control, officials are working to eliminate free right turns.
“We will be conducting a study to consider reconfiguring slip lanes as part of a different project at a different location in Los Altos,” Lee said. “The Complete Streets Master Plan includes many slip-lane removals citywide as a long-term goal.”
As a route student cyclists take on their way to Gardner Bullis School in Los Altos Hills or to Los Altos High School, West Edith Avenue has drawn numerous complaints about speeding drivers. It also has generated accidents, including a fatal two-car collision in 2017.
“It’s a joke that kids are supposed to bike down Edith,” Wojcicki said. “There’s nothing safe about Edith.”
She indicated her philanthropic foundation would take a grass-roots perspective in helping to find solutions.
“The reason I posted on Nextdoor (was), I wanted to see what the community thought,” Wojcicki said. “It was clear from that post that people have also had that experience. We will be re-energized in working on this.”
